Critters Attack!

Friday, June 12, 2009

Coming home is usually a nice quiet event. I drive up, get my stuff from the car, and walk into the house to a happy greeting from Cat. This time was a bit different.

Cat comes bursting out the front door, a wild and panicked expression on her face. She starts speaking hurriedly, something about a creature in one of her flower pots. "It's huge, its horrible, look!! What's it doing there??" She steps backward a bit as she points to a certain pot. Great, I think... is it a snake? a big nasty big bug? I slowly step toward the pot... I bend over slightly, looking down, trying to see what it is. It takes me a second, but there it was. Slightly burrowed into the dirt was the horrible creature Catalina was so distraught over.

A frog.

I looked at Cat with a puzzled expression, and she said "See!?! It's horrible! I was working on my flowers, and I was THIS CLOSE to it with my face!" She made a motion with her hands to indicate just a few inches.

I said, "It's a frog."

"Yes! What's it doing in my flower pot?!?!"

Okay, I have to take a little side note to say that Catalina has a rule that when we are home (and alone), we must not wear our outside clothes, such as what I wear to work or jeans. One of Cat's favorites things to wear are these bright green pajamas with yellow polka dots on them. I've often teased her about how those pajamas make her look like a frog. So knowing that, I look at her said "Perhaps he thought he was visiting a relative."

Not the wisest thing that's ever come out of my mouth. At least Cat laughed at that. She has a sense of humor, and can take a little teasing.

Cat asked me to get rid of the frog, so I dutifully bent over to pick the frog out of his resting place, when Cat screamed "Don't touch it, its poisonous!" I stopped dead, then stood up recoiling a bit before realizing what I was doing. I stared at her a bit and asked, "Poisonous? Frogs aren't poisonous." She glared at me as if I were crazy, and said "Yes they are, would you kiss a frog?"

Okay now, I was a bit confused. Kiss a frog? Of course not..but what made her say that. So I asked, "why would I want to kiss a frog?" She said something about the story of kissing the frog to get the handsome prince, so I said "I don't really want a handsome prince". Cat shot back, "Okay, a beautiful princess" and I said, hoping to make up for my pajama remark, "why would I need a princess dear, I have you". She just rolled her eyes.

Finally, I realized that instead of "poisonous" as something that would kill you, she really meant "unsanitary" as in something dirty. Now that would make much more sense. True, frogs aren't the cleanest thing around, and if you pick them up, they seem to pee on you. Not good. So, I asked Cat to get me a broom.

Using the broom, I prodded the little guy (male ... female..I have no clue) out of his comfortable little hole in the dirt and made him leave the pot. Finally, after a little bit, I shooed him into the yard. Cat felt a little better, but couldn't really forget the incident. She kept speaking on about worms and frogs and snakes and scorpions and such.